Today's installation of 2G/3G/4G base stations requires that the base station is connected to the core network. In 2G and 3G, upon deployment the configuration of base stations required a vehicle equipped with an extended and powerful user node (UNd) device, driving in the entire service area to collect measurements. Based on the collected measurements, operators could derive received power levels, coverage maps, outage and other performance parameters. Adjustments were performed manually and required additional drive tests. The installation and configuration process requires days and months.
In 4G, a set of technical solutions have been specified under the umbrella name “minimization of drive tests” (MDT) where user node devices are exploited to perform measurements to test and adjust base station configurations. In both 3G and 4G the initial configuration of a base station was based on a default setting predetermined by the manufacturer (as derived from simulations). Furthermore, base stations were trusted and technologically homogeneous i.e., they all had the same capabilities since they belonged to the same product series of a single manufacturer. Based on prior knowledge of a radio node's capabilities, configuration for inter-node operation was anticipated and simplified. In dense network deployments such as those on lampposts and street lights, it is expected that the deployment will be done incrementally, or with an increasing population density resulting in nodes that may not be technically homogeneous. Also nodes may be replaced and/or reactivated in the case of area reconstructions or damages caused by labor or traffic accidents.
For testing purposes the primitives for the execution of testing are generic and aim at testing only the operation of the tested radio node. These primitives assume in advance the radio node's capability and functions therefore they neither define the test context and scenario for the testing, nor the automatic verification of the radio nodes. It would be advantageous to be able to provide a scalable mechanism that allows an operator to verify the capabilities of a radio node to operate as an access node by means of test context based on a method/protocol that facilitates automatic configuration and operation testing with the participation of other radio nodes and a minimum manual effort.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an apparatus and method that addresses at least some of the problems identified above.